Ukraine's anti-corruption bodies have said they had uncovered a major graft scheme that procured military drones and signal jamming systems at inflated prices, two days after the agencies' independence was restored following major protests.
In a statement published by both agencies on social media on Saturday, the National Anti-Corruption Agency (NABU) and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) said they had caught a sitting lawmaker, two local officials and an unspecified number of national guard personnel taking bribes. None of them was identified in the statement.
"The essence of the scheme was to conclude state contracts with supplier companies at deliberately inflated prices," it said, adding that the offenders had received kickbacks of up to 30 percent of a contract's cost. Four people had been arrested.
"There can only be zero tolerance for corruption, clear teamwork to expose corruption and, as a result, a just sentence," President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram.
Zelenskyy added that he is "grateful to the anti-corruption agencies for their work.
"It is important that anti-corruption institutions operate independently, and the law passed on Thursday guarantees them all the tools necessary for a real fight against corruption."
Rare protests
The independence of Ukraine's anti-graft investigators and prosecutors, NABU and SAPO, was reinstated by parliament on Thursday after a move to take it away resulted in the country's biggest demonstrations since the war started.
Zelenskyy, who has far-reaching wartime presidential powers, was forced into a political shift when his attempt to bring NABU and SAPO under the control of his prosecutor-general sparked the first nationwide protests of the war.
Zelenskyy subsequently said that he had heard the people's anger, and submitted a bill restoring the agencies' former independence, which was voted through by parliament on Thursday.
Ukraine's European allies praised the move, having voiced concerns about the original stripping of the agencies' status.
Top European officials had told Zelenskyy that Ukraine was jeopardising its bid for European Union membership by curbing the powers of its anti-graft authorities.
